The continued ripple effect of r&b's conquest of the pop charts in the mid-90s
was felt at adult contemporary radio, which dabbled with "Waterfalls" by TLC,
after completely ignoring their big pop hit from earlier in the year called
"Creep." Both songs had a soft grinding slow jam feel.

AC radio was more receptive to established acts like Michael Jackson, who had
the huge crossover hit "You Are Not Alone" in 1995. It topped both the pop and
AC charts, as did "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men or the more
upbeat "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey. A more traditonally sounding soul ballad called "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal also saturated
adult contemporary radio.

While alternative radio had grown to be a separate culture there was evidence
by 1995 that AC programmers were interested in cherry-picking hits from the
format. The two best selling albums of the year were from Alanis Morissette
and Hootie & The Blowfish, two artists that may have otherwise fallen through
the cracks if not for the openness of the alternative format to play melodic
music that was ignored by regular top 40 or adult pop stations.

At the same time a few stands of the alternative format were beginning to
fragment into more adult versions. "Adult album alternative" or "AAA," aka "triple A,"
was one of seed of this fragmentation. Alanis and Hootie would find homes in the AAA
format for awhile, along with Counting Crows, Blues Traveler and other more retro-pop
sounding rock artists.

The ballad "Stay (I Missed You)" by Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories had broken at
alternative radio in 1994 as an indie track featured in the movie Reality Bites.
In 1995 it was nominated for a Grammy as best pop performance but was beaten by
the more r&b-oriented "I Swear," by All-4-One. Nevertheless, it became a widely
known song that at first was only embraced by alternative radio and ultimately
became a big pop and AC hit.

It's important to point out that 1995 was the peak year in sales and radio ratings
for the alternative radio format. In subsequent years many alternative acts would
be embraced by other formats, including adult contemporary.